It’s fantastic to be on the other side of the holidays! Even though my kids were home for almost three weeks straight, my dog continues to cause ridiculous amounts of stress and a warm day is anything that is a positive number, I’m still grateful to be firmly in January of a new year.

Adios 2017. You were one bad hombre!

Peace out 2017!

WEEK OF JANUARY 1, 2018

RUNNING

If you’re looking for bundled up pictures of me with #badass and screenshots of below freezing temps, you have the wrong woman. I was happily running indoors, on my treadmill, in very little clothing, with the fan on and ice in my water bottle. If age has taught me anything about running it’s to be as comfortable as possible since running itself is hard enough!

Speaking of, I ran 9.79 miles on a treadmill on New Year’s Day after staying out until 1am. Now that is badass people…or just stupidity…you be the judge.

This is what crazy looks like.

Monday – Long aerobic with 5k accelerations every 5 min | 1:15:10 | 9.79 miles | 7:41 pace

Wednesday – Easy run before strength | 5.24 miles | 7:50 pace

Sunday – 400m sets on indoor track before strength | 5.27 miles | 7:20 pace

CYCLING

To all the people who told me to watch Shameless on Showtime — thank you! It has been my saving grace on the bike. However, since my kids have had one day of school in the past three weeks, it’s been a tad tricky to keep them from seeing a shot of someone’s boobs, bare ass or cocaine snorting as they are running around the basement while I pedal away. Parenting is very difficult.

That’s the face Vaughn makes when I try to parent him.

Tuesday – Base build – aerobic builds | 16.0 miles | 1:10:20

Friday – AC NP FTP (which translates into “try not to die on this ride!”) | 1:46:30

SWIMMING

I haven’t had a lot of time in the pool since my kids are never in school and I hate bringing them to the day care at the gym when I can bike and run at home. Despite my difficulties and first world problems, I was able to get in two days of recovery swims.

Tuesday – swim after bike | 40 minutes

Wednesday – swim after run and strength | 30 minutes

STRENGTH TRAINING

The muscle building continues although I had to quit CrossFit. Probably no one is surprised by this but, I had to at least give it a shot. The sessions are just too unpredictable. I need to strength train for endurance, running, swimming and cycling and doing 150 rounds of squats is not cutting it. A lot of the sessions are fantastic, and the people at the facility are knowledgeable and friendly, but it just doesn’t fit for me right now.

My coach is giving me plenty to do on my own and I’m growing accustom to the workouts. Imagine!

Look ma! Handstand push-ups for the win.

I primarily do two session per week and they involve a lot of band walking, lateral lunges, pull downs, chest presses, core work and overhead presses. There’s also a lot of balance with one leg moves and plenty of foam rolling to finish me off.

THINGS I LOVE

The holidays…now that they’re over.

Of course I enjoy the holidays, it’s all the preparation and craziness leading up to them I hate. Plus, all family flaws and petty annoyances become magnified and there’s a great, big, glaring light on who is not home and never will be.

Besides that, the holidays are amazing!

And my dad bought a bong. A wine bong obviously, since marijuana isn’t legal in Connecticut yet. It has something to do with aeration and the pours get more interesting as the night goes on.

Hits from the bong.

The boys on Christmas day.

THINGS I DON’T LOVE AS MUCH

New Year resolutions, or a word of the year, or non-resolutions. I get the idea of starting over in a new year but the constant “new year, new you” is so cliche.  Instead, I love what one of my friends wrote on Instagram:

“I’m not making resolutions, I’m making adjustments based on what works.”

Yes. Exactly that! Set yourselves up for success based on what works. I’m going to start by showing my boobs more in 2018. They got a big reaction on New Year’s Eve…

Even my husband was shocked.

I have more  “adjustments” I’ll be talking about next week in terms of my race goals for 2018. Stay tuned!

TELEVISION

Since we have been snowed or iced in for the better part of a month, there has been a lot of TV watching. My husband and I don’t hardly ever have this much TV time and it was amazing. We watched holiday classics, old favorites and started watching this gem too…

Master of None | Aziz Ansari | Netflix

The show is a hilarious take on Ansari’s life as an Indian actor trying to make a living and carve out a career in New York City. Each episode is unique and finds him in different situations so no need to watch each one or watch them in order. My favorites include him solo parenting, getting the Plan B pill with a girl and did you know the guy who played “Indian Man” in Short Circuit 2 is Fisher Stevens who is not Indian but did an Indian accent? Me either.

Do yourself a favor and watch something completely different and forget about the deep freeze for a while.

READING

One of the best books I have read in a long time is We Were Liars by E. Lockhart. It’s a quick read (I read it in two days) partly because it’s short and partly because you have a compulsion to find out what happened! It’s dark and not filled with sunshine and rainbows but what else do you expect here?

RANDOM PHOTO OF THE WEEK

When an inflatable bowling pin makes you this happy, you know it’s amazing to be eight!

Happy New Year everyone! It’s good to be back.

Are you happy to be on the other side of the holidays?

What is the best thing about 2018 so far?

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